love this new series of light motion by artist and photographer, stephen orlando. the artist uses programmable LED nightsticks and has recently attached them to oars, paddles and people in movement – the newer images interacting with water are really magical and reminiscent of contemporary architectural forms. reminded me of this project from Oslo who used LED to measure wifi signals across the city

love this series of musicians backstage requests (or ‘riders’, ‘addendums’) for food items that the photographer, henry hargreaves, has shot in a style of the flemish masters. Each of the requests that accompany Hargreaves’ photographs are taken directly from the contracts, and the spelling is verbatim from the riders. the artist says what attracted him to the series was “the way their requests manage to say something about the performers personality that words struggle to,” and the way they “were able identify with them through what they chose to eat and drink.”

in an interview with vice, hargreaves notes, “I initially thought I would try and shoot all of the items listed on the catering riders but quickly realized that this would become an exercise in wasting money. So I decided to focus on the quirkiest requests and shoot them in a Flemish Baroque still-life style because I felt that there was a direct connection between the themes in these types of paintings and the riders: the idea of time passing and the ultimate mortality of a musician’s career as the limelight inevitably fades—they only have a short time in which they are able to make these demands and have them fulfilled.”

Ira Glass – The way I always heard the story was that Van Halen had something in the contract that they used when they toured that said that everywhere that they went, in every city, in every dressing room on their tour, there had to be a bowl of M&Ms, and that the brown M&Ms had to be removed. It’s kind of a well-known story, I think. And the way that I understood it is that it showed what divas rock stars could be, that any whim that they had would have to be met, no matter how petty. You hate brown M&Ms? Poof! They will cease to exist in your world.
And then a couple of years ago, we had this band, They Might Be Giants, on our radio show….And I remember John Flansburgh saying to me, no, no, no, no, no. I had the meaning of the story totally wrong.

John Flansburgh – The thing that the average rock fan doesn’t realize is that, in the itinerant life of somebody in a rock band, they’re relying on a promoter– probably a different promoter every day– to give them everything. And a contract rider is basically the entire show from beginning to end. I mean, you’re talking about personnel. You’re talking about the PA. So a lot of it’s very prosaic stuff. People really focus on the dressing room stuff, but actually most of it is just making sure that there’s literally enough electricity in the venue so that the show doesn’t end after 10 minutes.

Ira Glass – And this, Flansburgh says, was what was so ingenious about the brown M&Ms. Van Halen had this huge setup with lots of gear, and if the local promoter didn’t carefully read the contract rider, stuff could collapse. It could be dangerous. So the brown M&Ms were like the canary in the coal mine. The contract rider said the brown M&Ms were not supposed to be there. If they were there, look out.

Ira Glass – “We’d pull up with nine 18-wheeler trucks full of gear in places where the standard was three trucks max. And there were many, many technical errors, whether it was the girders couldn’t support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren’t big enough to move the gear through. The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages, because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function. So just as a little test, in article number 126, in the middle of nowhere was, quote, ‘There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area upon pain of forfeiture of the show with full compensation,’ end quote.”

So, David Lee Roth writes, “When I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl, well, line check the entire production, guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error. They didn’t read the contract. Guaranteed, you’d run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to destroy the whole show. Sometimes literally life threatening.”

I need a set of astronaut sheets from this dutch design house called – snurk. very cool lighthearted products like a dog and cat on the duvet for allergy sufferers and the astronaut and princess covers for imagining under…

It started with a sillyidea about a cardboard box duvet cover; Le-Clochard. And it lived inside Peggy’s head for years. One day, Erik lost his job unexpectedly. But Erik knew about the idea and had an idea of his own. He wanted to actually make and sell the duvet cover.Together they worked out a plan to donate a large part of the proceeds to The Dutch Foundation for Homeless Youngsters (SZN). Because a duvet cover like Le-Clochard only sleeps well if it actually helps a homeless person. The Homeless Foundation responded with enthusiasm to their plans and so Erik and Peggy decided to take the plunge. Le-Clochard was a success. Magazines, newspapers and blogs wrote about it. And not just in the Netherlands. Other foundations from the United Kingdom and Germany joined the project and shared in profit and media attention. And new ideas kept on coming. Just like emails from people all over the world wanting more unusual bedding like this. A year and a half later SNURK bedding was introduced. (SNURK means “to snore” in Dutch.)

I had the great opportunity to dine at the herb farm – just outside of seattle this past fall while I attended the Contract Design Forum. The theme of our dinner was mushrooms, ‘A Mycologist’s Dream’ – 9 courses with matched wines served in what feels like a french family’s farmhouse. Truly one of the best meals I have ever had – they also have an exceptional wine cellar and knowledge of wines. The highlight is an organic garden on site with 2 large pigs named Basil and Borage.

From their website“…Each 9-course dinner, served with 5 or 6 matched wines, draws its inspiration from the rhythms of the season. For much of the year The Herbfarm kitchen gardens and farm supply the restaurant with an ever-changing harvest of common and unusual produce. Small growers and producers provide wild mushrooms, heritage fruits, handmade cheeses, and rare treasures such as water grown wasabi root and artisanal caviars. Each day’s menu is finalized only hours before the meal to best track the symphony of life on the land and sea. Week in and week out. The Herbfarm’s 9-course menu brings new delights.”

my birthday gift – ordered 2 months ago finally arrived from sunny brooklyn, nyc. the dream of a home 3d printer is now on our worktable in my studio. some of the initial tests are shown below – the unit works amazingly well and I am slowly learning how to simplify and make the right design decisions to get the most out of the printer. the network of shared 3d models gives you an idea of the possibilities on thingiverse

a sampling of our dinner at the new bel air hotel – very close to our house. We used to come here with very little money and have 2 martinis and split a burger at lunchtime. It’s one of those LA institutions that brings you to another world when you enter the grounds just over the footbridge. The hotel went through a major renovation last year and is a bit hipper and it lost a little bit of the charm – but there is enough of the original in the architecture and grounds that has remained unchanged for generations…

I just came across from studies I had done in Vray for Cinema 4D last year – the lighting is generated by a single source of sunlight and really gives the feeling of natural lighting an a very real atmosphere. the project is to build a pod office in our front yard